adj.
1. Walking about or from place to place; travelling on foot.
2. Of or relating to the philosophy or teaching methods of Aristotle, who conducted discussions while walking about in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.

Also used to describe teachers or more commonly lecturers who ply their trade at more than one educational establishment.

Always loved that word...

I was responsible for wrecking one use of peripatetic - the peripatetic dinner.

The idea of a peripatetic dinner is that a group of friends organise the social event. The pre-dinner drinks are in one house, the group walk to the next one for the soup or starter course, to another for the main course, to yet another for the dessert and end up for coffee and biscuits at the final destination. The idea is that the cost and work is spread.

In the mid 1960s my brother and his wife lived in a small village and peripatetic dinners were a successful social feature during summer months.

A couple of years earlier I brought a large bottle back from the country that was then Yugoslavia and I had given it to my brother. He didn't know what it was because the label was in Cyrillic.

When he opened it on the evening of the dinner, it smelled fruity. He thought it might make a basis for the alcoholic fruit cup to be served with with main course of a rich pork casserole at their house. The whole bottle went into the bowl and gin was added along with the fruit.

When the party arrived from the soup course my sister-in-law took the casserole and roasted vegetables to the table while my brother served fruit cup to everyone. They all enjoyed the casserole but the conversation seemed to get louder and more animated as the course and the fruit cup were consumed. Then one woman collapsed in an armchair and started snoozing. Within minutes several others had joined her.

The peripatetic dinner never got beyond the main course. Nor did the diners. They spent the night sprawled around my brother's house. The guests included the local Police Sergeant, the local Justice of the Peace and the Member of Parliament.

Next morning several of them had significant hangovers. My brother telephoned me to ask what the contents were of the bottle I had given him.

I reminded him that when I had given it to him two years earlier I had advised extreme caution. It was Slivovica (Yugoslav Slivovitz), Plum Brandy, and was 140 degrees proof alcohol - which he had been diluting with gin and serving in half pint glasses.

The peripatetic dinner resumed the next weekend for the dessert followed by coffee and biscuits.

Nearly 30 years later Og, and that particular peripatetic dinner, are still notorious and part of the village's legends.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

I was responsible for wrecking one use of peripatetic - the peripatetic dinner.

The idea of a peripatetic dinner is that a group of friends organise the social event.
...
I reminded him that when I had given it to him two years earlier I had advised extreme caution. It was Slivovica (Yugoslav Slivovitz), Plum Brandy, and was 140 degrees proof alcohol - which he had been diluting with gin and serving in half pint glasses.

The idea of diluting anything with gin is staggering (if you'll pardon the pun). Didn't the drink taste strong?

And serving 2 bottles (two and two thirds pints) in half pint glasses suggests the guest list was short (or the glasses weren't very full).

The idea of diluting anything with gin is staggering (if you'll pardon the pun). Didn't the drink taste strong?

And serving 2 bottles (two and two thirds pints) in half pint glasses suggests the guest list was short (or the glasses weren't very full).

Never mind, Og, you're also a legend on Lit!

The bottle of Slivovica was 2.5 litres.

There might have been some fruit juice under all the alcohol.

At least one of the guests had queried the contents of the Fruit Cup. My brother had replied that the base was Yugoslav 'wine' from his brother. But my sister-in-law was an adventurous cook - very adventurous for a 1960s rural community. She had been on cordon bleu cookery courses in Geneva and Paris, and had worked in France, Switzerland and Nigeria. Her cooking was popular but very exotic for the time.

The guests weren't surprised that my brother's Fruit Cup was 'different'. They expected something unusual at my brother's house. Yugoslavia was a far-away, seldom-visited place in the early 1960s. No one at the party had drunk Slivovitz or Yugoslav wine.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

In my primary school when I was about age 8, parsing was a required part of the English curriculum. We had to explain that a sentence had to have a subject, a verb and an object, even if the object was implied and not stated.

Analysing sentences was a bore, but the teachers considered that a reasonable command of parsing, and therefore English grammatical construction, was necessary before we started Latin at age 9.

gerund, theThis is certainly a Lost Cause, at least in the sense that very few people nowadays know what a gerund is. But just as people still use the subjunctive form without knowing the term itself– 'He insisted that she go to bed immediately'– so the gerund survives in use, although largely unrecognized. The gerund is derived from a verb, usually by adding the suffix –ing. Although remaining a verb, it acts in some respects as if it were a noun, and especially in the respect that if the action denoted is attributed to someone or something it needs to be accompanied by the possessive form. A few examples should make this clearer: it is correct to say 'We were surprised at their appearing so calm,' 'She was distressed at his leaving so suddenly,' 'I was surprised at its being so easy to do.' It would be wrong to say 'them appearing,' 'him leaving,' or 'it being.'

-James CochraneBetween You and I, A little book of bad English
Naperville, Illinois. 1994.

... It would be wrong to say 'them appearing,' 'him leaving,' or 'it being.'

-James CochraneBetween You and I, A little book of bad English
Naperville, Illinois. 1994.

Cochrane's examples leave something to be desired. He is correct that gerunds require possessive nouns, but the truth of his claim regarding the words "appearing", "leaving", and "being" depends very much on the context in which those verbals are used. It is entirely correct, for example, to say "I saw him leaving the house." In that statement, "leaving" is not a gerund, but a participle.

Interestingly, it is also correct to say "I saw his leaving the house." Here, "leaving" is a gerund, and the meaning is slightly different. In the first example, the emphasis is on the leaver; it the second, it is on the act of departing.

I can probably be accused of overusing the gerund phrase in my writing. Finding myself adrift in a sea of ing clauses, I edit often. LOL Thank you very much, Carlus and trysail for the finer points of usage.

Og, plum brandy at 140 percent alcohol would certainly have a kick and a half, but immersed in fruit cup, it could be a tasty, if lethal, treat. A recent article talked about Applejack, being served to Abraham Lincoln in the White House. I had some of that a few years ago, and became an instant fan.

All Embassy staff including the Ambassador are assumed to be persona grata and are accredited to the government of the state in which their Embassy is situated. For the UK, Ambassadors are accredited and accepted at the Court of St James.

Embassy staff as individuals can be made persona non grata if they have undertaken activities inconsistent with their status as diplomats e.g. have committed a criminal offence or have been detected spying, or travelling to places that are out-of-bounds to diplomatic staff e.g. military establishments.

A group of diplomatic staff from a single Embassy can be made persona non grata as an expression of displeasure at the actions of their country's government; or as retaliation for your own diplomatic staff being made persona non grata. It is a way of sending a message to the other state without causing too much offence.

PS While writing this I noticed that there is a ceremonial anomaly:

The Marshall of the Diplomatic Corps (and Her Majesty's Equerry) are the only two people now expected to walk backwards when leaving the Queen's presence.

The Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps is, along with the Queen's Equerry, expected to walk backwards discreetly when leaving the presence of the monarch. They are the only two visitors who are expected to do this today, as the ancient tradition that all who had the honour of a meeting with the monarch were expected to walk discreetly backwards when leaving the Sovereign's presence has been dropped for health and safety reasons. These two senior members of the Royal Household are expected to walk backwards leaving the room when they have either been summoned to see the Queen personally or they are introducing others—such as senior foreign diplomats—for audiences with the Queen. From Wikpedia.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

In the HBO mini-series, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin informed Adams that he was a persona non grata to Louis XVI's court, during their stay in France as American ambassadors. Adams went to Holland, I believe, from France, to continue to solicit funds for the war effort.

personage - noun1. a person of rank, note, or distinction; esp: one distinguished for presence and personal power 2. a dramatic, fictional, or historical character; also: IMPERSONATION 3. a human individual: PERSON

In the HBO mini-series, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin informed Adams that he was a persona non grata to Louis XVI's court, during their stay in France as American ambassadors. Adams went to Holland, I believe, from France, to continue to solicit funds for the war effort.

personage - noun1. a person of rank, note, or distinction; esp: one distinguished for presence and personal power 2. a dramatic, fictional, or historical character; also: IMPERSONATION 3. a human individual: PERSON

"Behold the Lord High Executioner, a personage of noble rank and title," Gilbert & Sulivan "The Mikado"

(I thought of two P-words but they've both been done and my piglet is talking piffle in my ear while I try to do seriously important things online so I'm just going to post.)

PS The Dr. thing comes in handley when telephone sales people phone up. As my partner pays all the bills, they ask for him first, then they say "Is that Mrs. my-partner's-name?" and I say, "No, this is Dr. Smith," and they hang up in confusion. Dr.s never buy fitted kitchens apparently!

(Well, not ones that phone you up. They go to Smallbones of Devizes and have an Aga of course! LOL if only!)

I really REALLY would have liked to do 'politic' for that highly tactful and well-worded post in the Facebook thread gently suggesting that anyone who puts up a comment on here about race politics is likely to get their ass flamed! (HandleyPage! what a gentleman, talk about putting your cloak down over a puddle for someone. The age of chivalry is not dead, after all.) I was lucky to get out of that one with my profile still intact!

...
PS The Dr. thing comes in handley when telephone sales people phone up. As my partner pays all the bills, they ask for him first, then they say "Is that Mrs. my-partner's-name?" and I say, "No, this is Dr. Smith," and they hang up in confusion. Dr.s never buy fitted kitchens apparently!

(Well, not ones that phone you up. They go to Smallbones of Devizes and have an Aga of course! LOL if only!)

We used to have a solid fuel-fired Aga in our old house. The cats loved it. They would snuggle up to it on winter days.

But it had been poorly installed. It shared a chimney with a solid fuel room heater in the breakfast room. Whenever the wind was strong from the South East, the Aga would go out. If the wind changed to SE during the night I'd have to relight the Aga before we could have breakfast, or even a cup of tea.

Within days of moving in we had bought an electric kettle. By August we had bought and installed a small electric ccoker to sit beside the Aga for breakfasts when the Aga had gone out, or when the weather was too hot for the Aga to be used.

Gradually the electric cooker was used more than the Aga. We were fed up with shovelling coke and ash and the inflexibility of the Aga's temperatures which influenced what we could eat.

When we replaced the kitchen and installed central heating, we sold the Aga to someone who installed it properly and still loves it.

We still miss some of the slow-cooked dishes that were the Aga's speciality. A casserole that had been slow-cooking for two days was delicious.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

The house I grew up in had an Aga. It must have been better placed for the wind as it never went out except when it had to be put out to be serviced. We all used to stand with our bums pressed up to it in winter - aah, that feeling against your buttocks!

We lived in a mock-Georgian semi-detached . It was actually Tudor but had had a pretend classical façade stuck on it in the 18th century, and it had a sort of dower cottage stuck on the side which my English grandmother lived in for many years.

We often mislaid members of the family. My sister-in-law remembers that the first time she came to visit, she asked where my Dad was. My mum said she thought he'd taken the dog for a walk but when he didn't show up at lunchtime - and we realised the dog was sleeping in her basket - we asked his secretary and she said he'd gone to Brussels.

I would so love to have an Aga again! but as my fella said to me when I wanted to have a real coal fire instead of a pretend gas one: "You're not very good about cleaning the rest of the house, are you sure you'll clean out the grate every day?"

I would so love to have an Aga again! but as my fella said to me when I wanted to have a real coal fire instead of a pretend gas one: "You're not very good about cleaning the rest of the house, are you sure you'll clean out the grate every day?"

They now have Agas run on gas, electricity and oil fuel. No shovelling, no grates to clean.

In our old house, apart from the Aga, we had 9 open fires, two fitted with solid fuel room heaters. In the first winter I used eight tons of coal, and that produced a lot of ash. Cleaning 9 fires every day was a real chore.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

They now have Agas run on gas, electricity and oil fuel. No shovelling, no grates to clean.

But they are expensive to buy and run.

In our old house, apart from the Aga, we had 9 open fires, two fitted with solid fuel room heaters. In the first winter I used eight tons of coal, and that produced a lot of ash. Cleaning 9 fires every day was a real chore.

Yes, I feel it would take a lot of irony to get me through that in the proper Stepford style. And my werewolf romance will have to do quite a bit better for me to be able to buy any kind of Aga, even if I am willing to compromise my nostalgia so far as to have an electric one!

Actually, the gas fire looks just the same and requires no cleaning at all, I can just run around it quickly in my high heels hoovering and pretend it's a devil to clean before sneaking off to Facebook .

I learn something new everyday on here, and especially from you Brits! Never met an AGA and I have never used coal to heat anything, but it was very interesting, indeed. Thanks so much for sharing your memories.

persona - noun1. personae pl: the characters of a fictional presentation (as a novel or play) [comic personae] 2.pl personas the social facade an individual assumes

I learn something new everyday on here, and especially from you Brits! Never met an AGA and I have never used coal to heat anything, but it was very interesting, indeed. Thanks so much for sharing your memories.

electricblue66: It's like [oggbashan] is writing for the third puffin over there by the sixth rock, when everyone else is an emperor penguin in the Antarctic, where there's tens of thousands of the bastards.

I learn something new everyday on here, and especially from you Brits! Never met an AGA and I have never used coal to heat anything, but it was very interesting, indeed. Thanks so much for sharing your memories.

persona - noun1. personae pl: the characters of a fictional presentation (as a novel or play) [comic personae] 2.pl personas the social facade an individual assumes

should that not be dramatis personae ?
the Persons in the drama ?

PS I think AGA is now made by Raeburn [famous for room heaters at one time]

I have an old (1952, same age as me) O'Keefe and Merritt gas oven, converted to propane, with a large grill in the center and a broiler with a rack that raises and lowers. I still love warming my ass cheeks on it in the winter and would not want to live without it, it is such a work of art, cooking-wise, of course. The AGA looks similar, and I wonder what the letters stand for, A G A or is it a name on its own, Aga.